Enciclopédia Mackey – DOLMEN ~ DYE

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FREEMASONRY AND ITS KINDRED SCIENCES by ALBERT C. MACKEY M. D.

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DOLMEN

A name given in France to the Celtic stone tables termed in England cromlechs.

DOMATIC

At one time, especially in Scotland, Operative Freemasons were styled Domatic, while the Speculative ones were known as Geometric; but theorigin and derivation of the terms are unknown

DOMINE DEUS MEUS

The Hebrew term for this Latin expression is ….. , pronounced as Ad-o-noy ‘ El-o-hay, signifying oh Lord, my God, and referring to the Third Degree of the Scottish Rite.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Freemasonry, in the Dominican Republic, had for its center the National Grand Orient, which possessed the supreme authority and which practiced the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The Grand Orient was divided into a National Grand Lodge, under which have been fifteen Symbolic Lodges; a sovereign Grand Chapter General, under which are all Chapters; and a Supreme Council, which controlled the Advanced Degrees of the Rite. Santo Domingo was the headquarters of Morin (see further reference to him in this work) in 1763, when he was establishing the Scottish Rite in America.

Following the formation of the Republic of Santo Domingo in 1844, a Grand Orient was established in 1858 by Lodges originally chartered by the Grand Orient of Haiti. A Grand Lodge was organized in 1865 and later in that year there came into being a Supreme Council, the two uniting as a National Grand Orient on January 1, 1866.

DOMINICANS, ORDER OF

Founded at Toulouse, in 1215, by Dominic, or Domingo, de Guzman, who was born at Calahorra, in Old Castile, 1170. He became a traveling missionary to convert the heretical Albigenses, and established the Order for that purpose and the cure of souls. The Order was confirmed by Popes Innocent III and Honorius III, in 1216. Dress, white garment, with black cloak and pointed cap. Dominic died at Bologna, 1221, and was canonized, given saintly standing in the church, by Gregory IX in 1233

DONATS

A class of men who were attached to the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, or Knights of Malta. They did not take the vows of the Order, but were employed in the various offices of the convent and hospital. In token of their connection with the Order, they wore what was called the demi-cross (see Knights of Malta).

DOOR

Every well-constructed Lodge-room should be provided with two doors-one on the left hand of the Senior Warden, communicating with the preparation room; the other on his right hand, communicating with the Tiler’s apartment.

The former of these is called the Inner Door, and is under the charge of the Senior Deacon; the latter is called the outer Door, and is under the charge of the Junior Deacon. In a well-furnished Lodge, each of these doors is provided with two knockers, one on the inside and the other on the outside; and the outside door has sometimes a small aperture in the center to facilitate communications between the Junior Deacon and the Tiler. This, however, is a modern innovation, and its propriety and expediency are very doubtful. No communication ought legally to be held between the inside and the outside of the Lodge except through the door, which should be opened only after regular alarm duly reported, and on the order of the Worshipful Master. Brother Mackey here describes the common practice in the United States of America, but the arrangement he advocates is by no means universal, Brother Clegg reporting instances found abroad where he entered at the left of the Senior Warden.

DORIC ORDER

The oldest and most original of the three Grecian orders. It is remarkable for robust solidity in the column, for massive grandeur in the entablature, and for harmonious simplicity in its construction. The distinguishing characteristic of this order is the want of a base. The flutings are few, large, and very little concave. The capital has no astragal or molding, but only one or more fillets, which separate the flutings from the torus or bead. The column of strength which supports the Lodge is of the Doric order, and its appropriate situation and symbolic officer are in the West (see Orders of Architecture).

DORMANT LODGE

A Lodge whose Charter has not been revoked, but which has ceased to meet and work for a long time, is said to be dormant. It can be restored to activity only by the authority of the Grand Master or the Grand Lodge on the petition of some of its members, one of whom, at least, ought to be a Past Master.

DORMER

In the Lectures, according to the present English system, the ornaments of a Master Mason’s Lodge are said to be the porch, dormer, and square pavement. The dormer is the window which is supposed to give light to the Holy of Holies. In the Glossary of Architecture, a dormer is defined to be a window pierced through a sloping roof, and placed in a small gable which rises on the side of the roof. This symbol is not preserved in the American system.

DOTAGE

The regulations of Freemasonry forbid the initiation of an old man in his dotage; and very properly, because the imbecility of his mind would prevent his comprehension of the truths presented to him.

DOUBLE CUBE

A cubical figure, whose length is equal to twice its breadth and height. Solomon’s Temple is said to have been of this figure, and hence it has sometimes been adopted as the symbol of a Masonic Lodge. Doctor Oliver (Dictionary of Symbolic Masonry) thus describes the symbolism of the double cube:

The heathen deities were many of them represented by a cubical stone. Pausanius informs us that a cube was the symbol of Mercury because, like the cube, he represented Truth. In Arabia, a black stone in the form of a double cube was reputed to be possessed of many occult virtues. Apollo was sometimes worshiped under the symbol of a square stone; and it is recorded that when a fatal pestilence raged at Delphi, the oracle was consulted as to the means proper to be adopted for the purpose of arresting its progress, and it commanded that the cube should be doubled. This was understood by the priests to refer to the altar, which was of a cubical form. They obeyed the injunction, increasing the altitude of the altar to its prescribed dimensions, like the pedestal in a Masons Lodge, and the pestilence ceased.

We may here add a few comments upon what Brother Mackey says of the double cube because the account may be understood in a somewhat different way. In fact, the famous problem of antiquity concerning the cube was not so simple as to give it twice the dimensions of its edges but to produce a cube twice the volume of another one, which is an entirely different proposition. The origin of the problem is not definitely known but probably it was suggested by the one credited to Pythagoras, namely, squat a square or constructing a square of twice the area of a Seen square.

The account given by Doctor Oliver is credited to Eratosthenes about 200 B.C. This authority in a letter to Ptolemy Euergetes tells the history of the problem. The Delphians, suffering a pestilence, consulted their oracles and were ordered to double the volume of the altar to be erected to their god, Apollo. An altar was built having an edge double the length of the original but the plague went on unabated, the oracles not having been obeyed. However, this story is a mere fable and is given no weight at the present time.

DOUBLE-HEADED EAGLE

See Eagle Double headed

DOUGLAS, STEPHEN ARNOLD

American statesman, born at Brandon, Vermont, April 23, 1813, and died June 3, 1861, at Chicago. Resourceful in political leadership, his rise to national prominence was rapid. Representative from Illinois, 1843, he became Senator in 1847, unsuccessful candidate for President, 1852 and 1856, and in 1858 ably debated with Abraham Lincoln in seven cities. His petition to Springfield Lodge No. 4, at Springfield, Illinois, is reproduced in this world The original hangs in the Lodge-room and the photograph was kindly furnished us by Brother H. C. McLoud.

DOVE

In ancient symbolism’s the dove represented purity and innocence; in ecclesiology, especially in church decoration, it is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. In Freemasonry, the dove is only viewed in reference to its use by Noah as a messenger. Hence, in the Grand Lodge of England, doves are the jewels of the Deacons, because these officers are the messengers of the Masters and Wardens. They are not so used in America. In an honorary or side Degree formerly conferred in America, and called the Arks roll of parchment, in a very clear hand, apparently and Dove, that bird is a prominent symbol.

DOVE, KNIGHTS AND LADIES OF THE

An Brother extinct secret society, of a Masonic model, but androgynous, including both sexes, instituted at Versailles, France in 1784.

DOWLAND MANUSCRIPT

First published by James Dowland, in the Gentelman’s Magazine, May, 1815 (volume lxxxv, page 489). “Written on a long roll of parchment in a very clear hand , apparently early in the seventeenth century, and very probably is copied from a manuscript of earlier date.” Brother William J. Hughan says: “Brother Woodford, Mr. Sims, and other eminent authorities, consider the original of the copy, from which the manuscript for the Gemtelman’s Magazine was written, to be a scroll of at least a century earlier than the date ascribed to Mr.Dowland’s manuscript, that is, about 1550.”

The original manuscript from which Dowland made his copy has not yet been traced. Hughan’s Old Charades, the edition of 1872, contains a reprint of the Douwland Manuscript.

DRAESEKE, JOHAN HEINRICH DERNHARDT

A celebrated pulpit orator of great eloquence, born at Brunswick, 1774, and died at Potsdam, 1849, who presided over the Lodge named Oelzweig, meaning, the Olive Branch, in Bremen, for three years, and whose contributions to Masonic literature were collected and published in 1865, by A. W. Muller, under the title of Bishop Dräseke as a Mason, in German Der Bischof Draseke als Maurer. Of this work Findel says that it “contains a string of costly pearls full of Masonic eloquence.”

DRAKE, FRANCIS

Francis Drake, M.D., F.R.S., a celebrated antiquary and historian, was initiated in the city of York in 1725, and, as Hughan says, “soon made his name felt in Masonry.” His promotion was rapid; for in the same year he was chosen Junior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of York, and in 1726 delivered an address, which was published with the following title: A Speech delivered to the Worshipful and Ancient Society of Free and Accepted Masons, at a Grand Lodge held at Merchants’ Hall, in the city of York, on St. John’s Day, December the 27th, 1726. The Right Worshipful Charles Bathurst, Esq., Grand Master. By the Junior Grand Warden. Olim meminisse Juvabit. York.

The Latin expression here is quoted from the Poet Vergil, recalling the joys of other times. The address was published in York without any date, but probably in 1727, and reprinted in London in 1729 and 1734. It has often been reproduced since and can be found in Hughan’s Masonic Sketches and Reprints. In this work Brother Drake makes the important statement that the first Grand Lodge in England was held at York; and that while it recognizes the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in London as Grand Master of England, it claims that its own Grand Master is Grand Master of all England. The speech is also important for containing a very early reference to the three Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason.

DRAMA

See Scenic Representations; Mysteries, Ancient, and Master Mason

DRAMATIC LITERATURE OF FREEMASONRY

Freemasonry has frequently supplied the play writers with a topic for the exercise of their genius. Kloss (Bibliographic, page 300) gives the titles of no less than forty-one plays of which Freemasonry has been the subject. Brother William Rufus Chetwood wrote the libretto of an opera entitled The Generous Freemason and this was given a first performance in London in 1730. An account of it has been printed by Brother Richard Northcott of the Covent Garden Theater, London, England. The earliest Masonic play is noticed by Thory (Annales Oripnis Magni Galliarum Orientis, ou Histoire de la Fondation du Grand Orient de France, meaning the History of the Foundation of the Grand Orient of France, page 360), as having been performed at Paris, in 1739, under the title of Les freemasons. Editions of it were subsequently published at London, Brunswick, and Strasbourg. In 1741, we have Das Geheimniss der Freimaurer, the Freemason’s Secret, at Frankfort and Leipzig.

France and Germany made many other contributions to the Masonic drama. Even Denmark supplied one in 1745, and Italy in 1785. The English dramatists give us only a pantomime, Harlequin Freemasons which was brought out at Covent Garden in 1781, and Solomon’s Temple, an oratorio. Templarism has not been neglected by the dramatists. Kalchberg, in 1788, wrote Die Tempelherren, meaning The Templars, a dramatic poem in the German language in five acts. Odon de Saint-Amand, Grand Maître des Templiers, the latter title meaning Grand Master of the Templars, a melodrama in three acts, was performed at Paris in 1806. Jacques Molai, a melodrama, was published at Paris in 1807, and La Mort de Jacques Molai, meaning in English the Death of James Molai, a tragedy, in 1812. Some of the plays on Freemasonry were intended to do honor to the Order, and many to throw ridicule upon it.

DRESDEN, CONGRESS OF

A General Congress of the Lodges of Saxony was held in Dresden, in 1811, where the representatives of twelve Lodges were present. In this Congress it was determined to recognize only the Freemasonry of Saint John, and to construct a National Grand Lodge. Accordingly, on September 28, 1811, the National Grand Lodge of Saxony was established in the city of Dresden, which was soon joined by all the Saxon Lodges, with the exception of one in Leipzig. Although it recognized only the Symbolic Degrees, it permitted great freedom in the selection of a ritual; and, accordingly, some of its Lodges worked in the Rite of Fessler, and others in the Rite of Berlin.

DRESS OF A FREEMASON

See Clothed

DROP CLOTH

A part of the furniture used in the United States of America in the ceremony of the Third Degree.

DROPS, THREE

Refers to mystic number of drops of blood from the White Giant, that in the Persian mysteries restored sight to the captives in the cell of horrors when applied by the conqueror Rustam. In India, a girdle of three triple threads was deemed holy; 80 were three drops of water in Brittany, and the same number of drops of blood in Mexico.

DRUIDICAL MYSTERIES

The Druids were a sacred order of priests who existed in Britain and Gaul, but whose mystical rites were practiced in most perfection in the former country, where the isle of Anglesea was considered as their principal seat. Godfrey Higgins thinks that they were also found in Germany, but against this opinion we have the positive statement of Caesar.

The meanings given to the word have been very numerous, and most of them wholly untenable. The Romans, seeing that they worshiped in groves of oak, because that tree was peculiarly sacred among them, derived their name from the Greek word, apes, drus thus absurdly seeking the etymology of a word of an older language in one comparatively modern. Their derivation would have been more reasonable had they known that in Sanskrit druma is an oak, from dru, meaning wood. It has also been traced to the Hebrew with equal incorrectness, for the Druids were not of the Semitic race. Its derivation is rather to be sought in the Celtic language. The Gaelic word Druiah signifies a holy or wise man; in a bad sense a magician; and this we may readily trace to the Aryan druh, applied to the spirit of night or darkness, whence we have the Zend dru, a magician. Druidism was a mystical profession, and in the olden time mystery and magic were always confounded. Charles Vallencey (Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicus, iii 503) says: “Walsh, Drud, a Druid, that is the absolver or remitter of sins; so the Irish Drui, a Druid, most certainly is from the Persic duru, meaning a good and holy man”; and Ousely (Collectanea Oriental iv, 302) adds to this the Arabic dari, which means a wise man. Bosworth (Anglo-Saxon Dictionary) gives dry, pronounced dru, as the Anglo-Saxon for a magician, sorcerer, druid. Probably with the old Celts the Druids occupied the same place as the Magi did with the old Persians.

Druidism was divided into three orders or Degrees, which were, beginning with the lowest the Bards, the Prophets, and the Druids. Godfrey Higgins thinks that the prophets were the lowest order, but he admits that it is not generally allowed. The constitution of the Order was in many respects like that of the Freemasons. In every country there was an Arch-Druid in whom all authority was placed. In Britain it is said that there were under him three arch-flamens or priests, and twenty-five flamens. There was an annual assembly for the administration of justice and the making of laws, and, besides, four quarterly meetings, which took place on the days when the sun reached his equinoctial and solstitial points. The latter two would very nearly correspond at this time with the festivals of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist. It was not lawful to commit their ceremonies or doctrines to writing, and Caesar says (Commentarii de bello Gallico vi, 14) that they used the Greek letters, which was, of course, as a cipher; but Godfrey Higgins (page 90) says that one of the Irish Ogum alphabets, which Toland calls secret writing, “was the original, sacred, and secret character of the Druids.”

The places of worship, which were also places of initiation, were of various forms: circular, because a circle was an emblem of the universe; or oval, in allusion to the mundane egg, from which, according to the Egyptians, our first parents issued; or serpentine, because a serpent was a symbol of Hu, the druidical Noah; or winged, to represent the motion of the Divine Spirit; or cruciform, because a cross was the emblem of regeneration.

Their only covering was the clouded canopy, because they deemed it absurd to confine the Omnipotent beneath a roof; and they were constructed of embankments of earth, and of unhewn stones, unpolluted with a metal tool. Nor was anyone permitted to enter their sacred retreats, unless he bore a chain.

The ceremony of initiation into the Druidical Mysteries required much preliminary mental preparation and physical purification. The aspirant was clothed with the three sacred colors, white, blue, and green; white as the symbol of Light, blue of Truth, and green of Hope. When the rites of initiation were passed, the tri-colored robe was changed for one of green; in the Second Degree, the candidate was clothed in blue; and having surmounted all the dangers of the Third, and arrived at the summit of perfection, he received the red tiara and flowing mantle of purest white. The ceremonies were numerous, the physical proofs painful, and the mental trials appalling. They commenced in the First Degree, with placing the aspirant in the pastes, bed or coffin, where his symbolical death was represented, and they terminated in the Third, by his regeneration or restoration to life from the womb of the giantess Ceridwin, and the committal of the body of the newly born to the waves in a small boat, symbolical of the ark. The result was, generally, that he succeeded in reaching the safe landing-place, but if his arm was weak, or his heart failed, death was the almost inevitable consequence. If he refused the trial through timidity, he was contemptuously rejected, and declared forever ineligible to participate in the sacred rites. But if he undertook it and succeeded, he was joyously invested with all the privileges of Druidism.

The doctrines of the Druids were the same as those entertained by Pythagoras. They taught the existence of one Supreme Being; a future state of rewards and punishment; the immortality of the soul, and a metempsychosis; and the object of their mystic rites was to communicate these doctrines in symbolic language, an object and a method common alike to Druidism, to the Ancient Mysteries and to Modern Freemasonry (see also Druidism, Dudley Wright, London, 1924, containing a bibliography of the subject).

DRUMMOND, JOSIAH HAYDEN

Born 1827, Brother Drummond was made a Freemason in 1849, and died on October 25, 1902, aged seventy-five. He served at the head of all the Masonic Bodies of his State, Maine, and had also been Grand High Priest of the General Grand Chapter, Grand Master of the General Grand Council, and Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. A Freemason for fifty-four years, this Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Maine, 1860 to 1862, was for thirty-eight y ears a vigorous writer of the Foreign Correspondence Reports and of other valuable works on Freemasonry. Christopher Diehl of the Grand Lodge of Utah wrote of him in the Proceedings of 1903, “His whole life was devoted to Freemasonry and for it he did his best work and because of that work he will live in the hearts of his Brethren for all time to come. The world is better off because he lived. His fame is secure. May his last sleep be sweet.” At the anniversary of the one hundred years since the death of Washington, conducted by the Grand Lodge of Virginia at Mount Vernon on December 14, 1899, when no less than seventeen Grand Masters were present together with the President of the United States, Brother Drummond was introduced by the Grand Master as follows:

“First of all I wish to call upon one whom Freemasonry delights to honor. The most erudite and accomplished Masonic scholar our century has known, the charm of whose personality and the strength of whose character, coupled with a conservative, calm and judicial mind, has made him not only beloved but a power of usefulness throughout the whole Masonic Fraternity” (see` Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, 1900).

DRUSES

A sect of mystic religionists who inhabit Mounts Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, in Syrian 294. They settled there about the tenth century, and are said to be a mixture of Cuthites or Kurds, Mardi Arabs, and possibly of Crusaders; all of whom were added, by subsequent immigrations, to the original stock to constitute the present or modern race of Druses.

Their religion is a heretical compound of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedism; the last of which, greatly modified, predominates in their faith. They have a regular order of priesthood, the office being filled by persons consecrated for the purpose, comprising principally the emirs and sheiks, who form a secret organization divided into several Degrees, keep the sacred books, and hold secret religious assemblies. Their sacred books are written in antiquated Arabic. The Druses are divided into three classes or Degrees, according to religious distinctions. To enable one Druse to recognize another, a system of passwords is adopted, without an interchange of which no communication is made that may give an idea of their religious tenets (see Tien’s Druse Religion Unveiled). Doctor Clarke tells us in his Travels that “one class of the Druses are to the rest what the initiated are to the profane, and are called Okkals, which means spiritualists; and they consider themselves superior to their countrymen. They have various degrees of initiation.”

Colonel Churchill in his Ten Years’ Residence on Mount Lebanon, tells us that among this singular people there is an order having many similar customs to the Freemasons. It requires a twelve months’ probation previous to the admission of a member. Both sexes are admissible. In the second year the novice assumes the distinguishing mark of the white turban, and afterward, by Degrees, is allowed to participate ;,n the whole of the mysteries. Simplicity of attire, self-denial, temperance, and irreproachable moral conduct are essential to admission to the order. All of these facts have led to the theory that the Druses are an offshoot from the early Freemasons, and that their connection with the latter is derived from the Crusaders, who, according to the same theory, are supposed to have acquired their Freemasonry during their residence in Palestine. Some writers go so far as to say that the Degree of Prince of Libanus, the Twenty-second in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, refers to the ancestors of these mystical mountaineers in Syria.

Several chapters deal with the Dresses in the Secret Sects of Syria and the Lebanon, by Brother Bernard H. Springett, London.

DUAD

The number two in the Pythagorean system of numbers.

DUALISM

The state of being two-fold, as good and evil, for example. In the old mythologies, there was a doctrine which supposed the world to have been always governed by two antagonistic principles, distinguished as the good and the evil principle. This doctrine pervaded all the Oriental religions. Thus in the system of Zoroaster, one of the great religious teachers of the East we have Ahriman and Ormuzd, and in the Hebrew cosmogony, their explanation of the system of the universe, we find the Creator and the Serpent. There has been a remarkable development of this system in the three degrees of Symbolic Freemasonry, which everywhere exhibit in their organization, their symbolism, and their design, the pervading influences of this principle of dualism. Thus, in the First Degree, there is Darkness overcome by might; in the Second, Ignorance dispersed by Snout e, and in the Third, Death conquered by Eternal Life

DUB

In the ancient ceremonies of chivalry, a knight was made by giving him three strokes on the neck with the flat end of the sword, and he was then said to be dubbed a knight. Dubbing is from the Saxon, dubban, meaning to strike with a blow. sir Thomas Smith (English Commonwealth), who wrote in the sixteenth century, says:

And when any man is made a knight, he, kneeling down, is strooken of the prince, with his sword naked, upon the back or shoulder the prince saying, Sus or sois chevalier au nom de Dieu, the two expressions in French meaning Be of good cheer, Knight, in God’s name, and in times past they added St. George, and at his arising the prince sayeth, Avancey. This is the manner of dubbing of knights at this present; and that term dubbing was the old term in this point, and not creation.

DUE EAST AND WEST

A Lodge is said to be situated due east and west for reasons which have varied at different periods in the ritual and lectures (see Orientation).

DUE EXAMINATION

That sort of examination which is correct and prescribed by law. It is one of the three modes of proving a strange Brother; the other two being strict trial and lawful information (see Vouching).

DUE FORM

When the Grand Lodge is opened, or any other Masonic ceremony performed, by the Deputy Grand Master in the absence of the Grand Master, it is said to be done in due form. Subordinate Lodges are always said to be opened and closed in due form. It is derived from the French word du, and that from devoir, meaning to owe, that which is owing or ought to be done. Due form is the form in which an act ought to be done to be done rightly. The French expression is En due form (see Ample Form).

DUE GUARD

A mode of recognition which derives its name from its object, which is to duly guard the person using it in reference to his obligations, and the penalty for their violation. The Due Guard is an Americanism, and of comparatively recent origin, being unknown to the English and Continental systems. In some of the old books of the date of 1757, the expression is used, but only as referring to what is now called the Sign. Dieu garde is similar in pronunciation to Due Guard and means God preserve. This similarity is worth consideration.

DUELING

This has always been considered a Masonic crime, and some of the Grand Lodges have enacted statutes by which Freemasons who engage in duels with each other are subject to expulsion. The Monde Maçonnique, the Masonic World, a French publication, May, 1858, gives the following correct view on this subject:

A Freemason who allows himself to be involved in :3 duel and who possesses not sufficient discretion to be able to make reparation without cowardice and without having recourse to this barbarous extremity destroys by that impious act the contract which binds him to his brethren. His sword or his pistol, though it may seem to spare his adversary, still commits a murder for it destroys his brothers from that time fraternity no longer exists for him.

DUES

The payment of annual dues by a member to his Lodge is a comparatively modern custom, and one that certainly did not exist before the revival of 1717. As previous to that period, according to Preston, Lodges received no Warrants, but a sufficient number of Brethren meeting together were competent to practice the Rites of Freemasonry, and as soon as the special business which called them together had been accomplished, they separated; there could have been no permanent organization of Speculative Freemasons, and no necessity for contributions to constitute a Lodge fund.

Dues must therefore have been unknown except in the Lodges of Operative Freemasons, which, as we find, especially in Scotland, had a permanent existence.

There is, accordingly, no regulation in any of the old Constitutions for the payment of dues. Brother Mackey held that it is not a general Masonic duty, in which the Freemason is affected to the whole of the Craft, but an arrangement between himself and his Lodge, with which the Grand Lodge ought not to interfere. As the payment of dues is not a duty owing to the Craft in general, so, in his opinion, the non-payment of them is not an offense against the Craft, but simply against his Lodge, the only punishment for which should be striking from the roll or discharge from membership.

Brother Mackey reports that in his day it was the almost universal opinion of Masonic jurists that suspension or expulsion from the Order is a punishment that should never be inflicted for non-payment of dues. However, the reader must be referred to the Masonic Code of his own Jurisdiction for the practice prevailing there.

DUMBNESS

Inability to speak. Although the faculty of speech is not one of the five human senses, it is important as the medium of communicating instruction, admonition, or reproof, and the person who does not possess it is unfitted to perform the most important duties of life. Hence dumbness disqualifies a candidate for Masonic initiation.

DUMM

A word that has been used in the Grand Chapter of Minnesota to signify what is more usually called a substitute in the Royal Arch Degree.

DUNCKERLEY, THOMAS

No one, among the Freemasons of England, occupied a more distinguished position or played a more important part in the labors of the Craft during the latter part of the eighteenth century than Thomas Dunckerley, whose private life was as romantic as his Masonic career was honorable. Thomas Dunckerley was born in the city of London on the 23d of October, 1724. He was the reputed son of a Mr. and Mrs. (Mary) Dunekerley, but really owed his birth to a personage of a much higher rank in life, being the natural son of the Prince of Wales, afterward George II, to whom he bore, as his portrait shows, a striking resemblance. It was not until after his mother’s death that he became acquainted with the true history of his birth; so that for more than half of his life this son of a king occupied a very humble position on the stage of the world, and was sometimes even embarrassed with the pressure of poverty and distress.

At the age of ten he entered the navy, and continued in the service for twenty-six years, acquiring, by his intelligence and uniformly good conduct, the esteem and commendation of all his commanders. But having no personal or family interest, he never attained to any higher rank than that of a gunner. During all this time, except at brief intervals, he was absent from England on foreign service.

He returned to his native country in January, 1760, to find that his mother had died a few days before, and that on her death-bed she had made 3 solemn declaration, accompanied by such details as left no possible doubt of its truth, that Thomas was the illegitimate son of King George II, born while he was Prince of Wales. The fact of the birth had, however, never been communicated by the mother to the prince, and George II died without knowing that he had such a son living.

Dunckerley, in the account of the affair which he left among his posthumous papers, says: “This information gave me great surprise and much uneasiness; and as I was obliged to return immediately to my duty on board the Vanguard, I made it known to no person at that time but Captain Swanton. He said that those who did not know me would look on it to be nothing more than a gossip’s story. We were then bound a second time to Quebec, and Captain Swanton did promise me that on our return to England he would endeavor to get me introduced to the king, and that he would give me a character; but when we came back to England the king was dead.” Dunckerley had hoped that his case would have been laid before his royal father, and that the result would have been an appointment equal to his birth. But the frustration of these hopes by the death of the king seems to have discouraged him, and no efforts appear for some time to have been made by him or his friends to communicate the facts to George III, who had succeeded to the throne.

In 1761 he again left England as a gunner in Lord Anson’s fleet, and did not return until 1764, at which time, finding himself embarrassed with 3 heavy debt, incurred in the expenses of his family, for he had married in early life, in the year 1744, knowing no person who could authenticate the story of his birth, and seeing no probability of gaining access -to the ear of the king, he sailed in a merchant vessel for the Mediterranean. He had previously been granted superannuation in the navy in consequence of his long services, and received a small pension, the principal part of which he left for the support of his family during his absence.

But the romantic story of his birth began to be publicly known and talked about, and in 1766 attracted the attention of several persons of distinction, who endeavored, but without success, to excite the interest of the Princess Dowager of Wales in his behalf.

In 1767, however, the declaration of his mother was laid before the king, who was George III, the grandson of his father. It made an impression on him, and inquiry into his previous character and conduct having proved satisfactory, in May 7, 1767, the king ordered Dunckerley to receive a pension of £100, which was subsequently increased to £800, together with a suite of apartments in Hampton Court Palace. He also assumed, and was permitted to bear, the royal arms, with the distinguishing badge of the bend sinister, and adopted as his motto the appropriate words Fato non merito, meaning By destiny, not merit. In his familiar correspondence, and in his book-plates, he used the name of Fitzy George.

In 1770 he became a student of law, and in 1774 was called to the bar; but his fondness for an active life prevented him from ever making much progress in the legal profession.

Dunckerley died at Portsmouth in the year 1795, at the ripe age of seventy-one; but his last years were embittered by the misconduct of his son, whose extravagance and dissolute conduct necessarily afflicted the mind while it straitened the means of the unhappy parent. Every effort to reclaim him proved utterly ineffectual; and on the death of his father, no provision being left for his support, he became a vagrant, living for the most part on Masonic charity. At last he became a bricklayer’s laborer, and was often seen ascending a ladder with a hod on his shoulders. His misfortunes and his misconduct at length found an end, and the grandson of a king of England died a pauper in a cellar at St. Giles.

Dunckerley was initiated into Freemasonry on January 10, 1754, in a Lodge, No. 31, which then met at the Three Tuns, Portsmouth; in 1760 he obtained a Warrant for a Lodge to be held on board the Vanguard, in which ship he was then serving; in the following year the Vanguard sailed for the West Indies, and Dunckerley was appointed to the Prince, for which ship a Lodge was warranted in 1762; this Warrant Dunckerley appears to have retained when he left the service, and in 1766 the Lodge was meeting at Somerset House, where Dunckerley was then living. In 1768 the Vanguard Lodge was revived in London, with Dunckerley as its first Master, and it exists to the present day under the name of the London Lodge, No. 108.

In 1767 he joined the present Lodge of Friendship; in 1785 he established a Lodge at Hampton Court, now No. 255. In 1767 he was appointed Provincial Grand Master of Hampshire, and in 1776 Provincial Grand Master for Essex, and at various dates he was placed in charge of the provinces of Bristol, Dorsetshire, Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, and Herefordshire. In Royal Arch Masonry Dunckerley displayed equal activity as in Craft Masonry; he was exalted at Portsmouth in 1754 and in 1766 joined the London Chapter, which in the following year became a Grand Chapter.

He was especially active in promoting Arch Masonry all over the country and was in charge of the English counties of Essex, Hants, Kent, Wilts, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, Gloucester, Suffolk, Sussex and Durham.

He was also a most zealous Knight Templar, being in 1791 the first Grand Master of the Order when the Grand Conclave was formed in London.

He was also a Mark Mason. A Charge, or Oration, is still extant, which was delivered by him at Plymouth in April, 1757, entitled The Light and Truth of Masonry Explained. He was also the author of A Song for the Knights Templar, and of an Ode for an Exaltation of Royal Arch Masons. These will be found in Thomas Dunckerley-his Life, Labors and Letters, by H. Sadler, 1891. Brother Hawkins in submitting the foregoing article points out that it is often asserted that Dunckerley revised the Craft Lectures and reconstructed the Royal Arch Degree, but there is no proof forthcoming of these statements. However, we may add to the comment by Brother Hawkins an observation by Brother Sadler (page 224) where he tells us that the publication of the various Charges, etc., by Brother Dunckerley are of such a character that they not unlikely thereby originated the tradition that he had revised or remodeled the Craft Lectures; but to Brother Sadler it seemed more than probable that the compiler of the Lectures made a very free use of Dunckerley’s brains in the work of compilation.

DUPATY, LOUIS EMANUEL CHARLES MERCIER

The author of many Masonic songs and other fugitive pieces inserted in the Annales Maçonniques. He wrote in 1810, with Révéroui de Saint-Cyr a comic opera entitled Cagliostro ou les Illuminés In 1818 he published a Masonic tale entitled l’Harmonie. He was a poet and dramatic writer of some reputation. He was born in the Gironde in 1775, elected to the French Academy in 1835, and died in 1851.

DURER, ALBRECHT

Famous German painter and engraver. Born at Nuremberg, May 21, 1471 died April 6, 1528. His mystically symbolic copper plates are particularly interesting and significant. The most important from a Masonic point of view is probably one entitled Melancholy (see illustration) in which is seen an exposition of medieval Freemasonry which suggests that Durer was familiar with the Fraternity of his time, possibly associated with the Nuremberg Lodge, and may have been a member of it (see American Freemason, November, 1911, page 21).

A suggestive examination of the symbolism of this 1514 copper-plate engraving was made by W. P. Tuckerman and translated by R. T. House, appeared in the Open Court, July, 1911, and extracts from it are by permission of the editor, Brother Paul Carus, given as follows: “A promising field for investigation is furnished by Albrecht Durer’s copper-engravings, etchings and wood-cuts which, in addition to their other great merits in the faithful portrayal of the life of his time, have caught and handed on to us many old traditions. Real mines of information are Durer’s mystically symbolic copper-plates. Of these puzzling will-o-the-wisps the most important is the one entitled ‘Melancholy’, which was formerly considered the first picture in a cycle representing the various moods of the soul but which now, viewed in the light of the Nuremberg developments, is seen to be an exposition of medieval Freemasonry. In Strasbourg, 1598, Emperor Maximilian gave to German Lodges, whose patron and honorary brother he was, a new organization, charter, and coat of arms.

The years from 1439 to 1477 were occupied in the Construction of the choir of the Church of St. Lorenz in Nuremberg, with its rich, artistic Gothic vaulted roof; and when we remember the dates of Durer’s birth and death, 1471 and 1528, the figures fit together so well that the probabilities seem to point to Durer’s personal contact with the Nuremberg fraternity, and his knowledge of their teachings; and a closer examination of his engraving ‘Melancholy’ will show very clearly that he is enforcing the ethical doctrines of Freemasonry by conventional symbolic formulas.

“Symbolism, that double form of expression, having a naive and innocent form for the larger public and a hidden meaning for the intelligent initiated, is well known to have been the resource of the medieval freethinking teacher who was forced to pick his way with the utmost care among the rocks of the Inquisition. Victor Hugo calls the images on the portals of Notre Dame the ‘freedom of the press’ of that epoch. It was natural that the architects, sculptors and painters of the Middle Ages, in their criticisms and satires directed at social evils, should have shielded themselves from the Church, which, moreover, employed symbolism in the promulgation of her own mystic dogmas. Hence it is that Durer avails himself of this stratagem in the promulgation of his humanistic ideas by his drawings, which were sold at the fairs under the inquisitorial eye of the Church; although the Church, in spite of her severe punishment of humanistic activities, was unable to prevent the public appearance of the Reformation in Nuremberg after the year 1524. “During Durer’s stay in Italy as a student in 1505, which took him to Bologna, he undoubtedly made the acquaintance of the academies there, as appears clearly from copper-plates like ‘Great and Little Fortune.’ On the other hand, in view of his extensive knowledge of mathematics and engineering he must have been associated with the Nuremberg Lodge, and was probably even a member of it. That he publicly handled the ethical doctrines of the latter, which through their agreement with teachings of the humanists were already known to a large circle of the uninitiated, in the regular symbolic language, indicates that the most severely kept secrets in the Lodge were not these teachings, but some ritual which is known no longer.

“When we examine the picture of ‘Melancholy’ in a purely objective fashion, we come to the conclusion, from a view of the most elevated figure, that of the writing angel, that the theme is some divine command which this being is communicating, a revelation or an ethical teaching. The content of the latter is drastically brought out, as always with Durer, by a sharp contrast, the contrast in this ease being the lower material handicraft and the higher symbolic labor, so that in the arrangement of figures the former is placed on a lower level, the latter on an elevated platform. On this level appears the prominent figure of the whole picture, a genius with mighty wings, much larger than the little angel, who in accordance with the old symbolism is represented as a small winged child.

The leading figure is a woman in rich festal attire, a garland on her loosened hair, her head supported thoughtfully on her left arm. Her right arm rests on a book, probably the Bible, and in her right hand she holds an open pair of ornamented compasses with which she is drawing figures on the tablet on her knees suggested by the form into which her skirt is drawn. Humanistically interpreted, this genius is the personification of some virtue operating with the writing angel, and the use of the compasses suggests the activity of the Masons. The explanation is given added weight by the polygonal structure with the ladder and the great building-stone leaning against it. But all this does not mean the completion of the work; it has only symbolical significance. In this the three great Platonic virtues, beauty, wisdom and strength, play a leading part as the means to human perfection just as Raphael, for instance, treats them in the Segaatura and are here evident as the content of the three main elements in the picture. First the angel, who sits on a round stone hung with a rich fringed cover, symbolizes wisdom because he is the means of divine revelation. At his left the great winged genius, the prominent person in the picture is Beauty. In her is symbolically represented the main interest of the fraternity; she is their guide and adviser, who teaches them to handle the compasses in the production of beautiful architectural figures. Finally, at the right of Wisdom, Strength is represented, not in a personification, but by an indication of the result, by a symbolizing of labor as the principal object of the effective Masonic Lodge. This lesson is taught by the great, many-sided building stone, with the shaping-hammer at its side, the conventional symbol of labor. The logical conclusion of this ethical teaching is the landscape in the background, with a sun breaking forth from rain-clouds and a diabolical creature who has no place in the calm scene and who is hastening to leave it, bearing a sign which labels him Melancholy.

“This sad attitude of soul, which would today be called pessimism, is ascribed only to the fleeing, banished devil, not to the genius of Beauty serious as this personage, in common with Durer’s characters in general, appears nor to the picture as a whole, which is thus wrongly named. The general characterization of the engraving as the ethical content of Freemasonry is borne out by the symbolic additions. In the first place it is significant that exactly over the angel on the outer wall of the polygonal structure the scales are hung, the well-known symbol for the judgment of the world and divine justice. This arrangement therefore characterizes the polygonal structure as a temple, the symbol for the perfection of all humanity. Only two faces of the building are represented, before whose broader front sits the genius of Beauty. Beauty, according to the Platonic conception, is moderation and harmony of the soul; in technical Masonry it is rhythm in architectural proportions.

This genius has a secret to guard, as is indicated by the bunch of keys and the bag suspended from her girdle. The subject of the secret is indicated again by the articles on the temple wall, especially the hour glass, the symbol of our fast fleeting life and the careful valuing of earthly and heavenly goods. On the dial above the hour-glass the hand stands between the figures three and four, which can be distinctly seen with a magnifying glass. These two numbers play an important part in the figure that follows, which is a so-called magic square hung up likewise on the temple wall, and reading 34 in every direction. If the reader will make the trial with the numbers from 1 to 16 written in the sixteen squares he will be astonished at the result. The same sum, 34, is obtained not only in the horizontal and vertical rows, but also in the diagonals, in the four smaller squares, in the middle square, etc. In the symbolism of numbers, three is the number of completeness and four indicates the extension of space in four directions, to the right, to the left, upward and downward.

Hence four is the symbol for the world and the house, moreover, for the Masonic Lodge and the Masonic fraternity. If these symbols are combined with the bell symbol above, the meaning is this, and may be put into the mouth of the genies as follows: Here sits the genius of Beauty, whose efforts are directed toward securing harmony between God and the world, and in view of the transitory nature of life she invites an active interest in the symbolic temple structure, which represents a perfected world.

” All these explanations are taken from well-known works on Christian symbolism and the symbols of the old Christian catacombs. The seven-runged ladder also, which leads into the temple, has its significance, as have the surfaces of the great building stone. We must assume that Durer, the accurate draughtsman, has made a correct picture; and in fact anyone who goes scientifically to work to procure the projections of this stone will be surprised at the many conclusions to be derived from a study of this traditional piece of apprentice work. one surface is an equilateral triangle, another a regular pentagon, two are trapezoids and two irregular pentagons. An architect acquainted with old buildings recognizes the block as the keystone for the vaulted ceiling of a six-sided cloister room, a chapel with a round aspe in which belongs the flat circular stone, whose center where the altar stands is cut with a double opening, all with symbolic significance. The keystone is to be so placed that the triangular side comes underneath, with the point toward the altar and the base toward the entrance. It is easy to reconstruct such a building, and the result opens up a wonderful perspective into some as yet unknown connection between the Masons and the Templars, the Order which was destroyed in 1313 and whose prototype for all their chapel structures is just the plan we have described. One more symbol is to be mentioned, the melting-pot which stands beside the stone, burning vigorously and ready to fuse the lead. This symbol is unknown elsewhere, but can reasonably be assumed to indicate the Brotherhood fused together in love, as the clamps and braces are leaded and secured by the help of the flame. “We have already spoken of the landscape in the background, but we must add that there is no evidence of a comet, as some commentators insist; it is the sun breaking through rain-clouds and sending out somewhat exaggerated beams. If it were not the sun the rainbow could not be where it is, seen by the spectator with his back to the sun, so that he looks out of the picture. According to the old Christian symbolism the rainbow is a sign of peace and the covenant between God and men. When this alliance with the Most High is perfected, the bat like, nocturnal devil’s imp, Melancholy, flees from the temple and the scene. On the label there appears after the word which has led to so mistaken a conclusion, a figure 1 or an i. The scholars who insist on a series of four pictures dealing with moods of the soul, considered this drawing the first because they read a 1; but if it is the letter i, it indicates an abbreviated Latin word, appropriate to the general tone of the picture, for example iacet. Then it reads ‘Melancholia iacet’, Melancholy falls in defeat or flees, which indicates the thought of the picture as a whole. Now if the old interpretation of the engraving, which makes the great winged genius the personification of Melancholy, is abandoned, and the new one accepted, the meaning of the articles scattered about on the ground is clear. They are the carelessly dropped, as it were discarded, tools of the trade at the feet of the winged genius, just as in Raphael’s celebrated picture, Saint Cecilia, discards the musical instruments which seem to her inadequate.

“In contrast to the higher symbolic spiritual instruments, these tools, pliers, beveling tool, plumb line, plane, iron band, saw and nails, represent incompleteness. But among them we see the sleeping dog, the ball, and an article which is not absolutely clear, but which is perhaps a vessel for incense. The dog, who lies very significantly under the round altarstone, represents in Christian symbolism, on account of his watchfulness and fidelity, the priestly order, as is indicated by the phrase Domini canes. When this order disregards its duty and, like the dog here, falls asleep, it belongs among the discarded tools and gives the laity who constitute the Masonic fraternity the right to open communication with the Most High without clerical mediation. As a pendant to this, could not the article lying near, an unused incense vessel, the symbol for the prayers which are pleasing to God, indicate that this vessel, belonging to the priesthood, is also discarded and that in its place we have the loving alliance of those who seek perfection through their own efforts, symbolized by the melting pot? The ball, elsewhere a mathematical sign of completeness, here standing for the earth, is probably also a symbol of earthly imperfection, in view of which the flight into purer regions of the spirit seems all the more necessary.

” Many scholars undervalue Durer’s inventive independence. Thus we read in Dohne’s Runst und Kunst ‘There is no reason for imputing profound thoughts to him; Durer was no nineteenth century philosophical thinker, but his was a genuine artist nature, and in works like “Melancholy,” “Nemesis,” and others, we may be sure that he was working under the orders of learned patrons.’ Who of the Nuremberg humanists Pirkheimer perhaps, or the townclerk Lazarus Spengler-could have coupled with his philosophical training so intimate a knowledge of the practical demands of stone-masonry? It is just here we have an evidence of Durer’s peculiar nature, which this ethically symbolic material, appealing to his mystic bent, fitted exactly. Hence this profound artist-philosopher, who sought to train his contemporaries in wisdom and beauty to strength, becomes for us a still far from exhausted source of the highest pleasure and the noblest teaching.”

DUTCH GUIANA

See Surinam

DUTY

The duty of a Freemason as an honest man is plain and easy. It requires of him honesty in contracts, sincerity in affirming, simplicity in bargaining, and faithfulness in performing. To sleep little, and to study much; to say little, and to hear and think much; to learn, that he may be able to do; and then to do earnestly and vigorously whatever the good of his fellows, his country, and mankind requires, are the duties of every Freemason.

Northern Freemason is quoted in Palmer Templegram. September, 1926, to the following effect: The very first duty that an Entered Apprentice acknowledges is to improve himself in Masonry. How many truly and sincerely attempt to discharge that duty? What would be the success of a lawyer who ever again looked into a law book after his admission D the bar- a minister of the Gospel, who never read the Bible after his ordination; a doctor who never took up medical work after securing his sheepskin; or that f any other profession, who does not take up post graduate studies?

And yet you find Freemasons pretending to be Masonic lights, who never read a Grand Lodge Proceedings a report on Foreign Correspondence, or a Masonic periodical Some of them, perhaps, can glibly repeat certain portions of the ritual, but could not give an intelligent interpretation of the same to save their lives.

Masonic reading is an essential part of the education of a Freemason, and it is never too late to begin, but it is always better to begin early. It is the duty of the Worshipful ;Master to impress this fact upon newly-made Masons, but if they themselves are in the class of nonreaders. how can we expect from them such wholesome advice?

DYAUS

Sanskrit for sky; Might; exalted. Therefore the word becomes significant of the Deity, the sun, the celestial canopy, the firmament.

DYE NA SORE

or Die Wanderer aus dem Sanskrit Ubersetzt. A Masonic romance, by Von Meyern, which appeared at Vienna in 1789, and contains a complete account of Masonic festivities.